NATO Sleepwalking into War with Russia

March 18, 2018 (EIRNS)—NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg frequently refers to NATO as a defensive alliance not aimed at anyone, but the alliance’s own actions, often with Stoltenberg’s approval, suggest that it is sleepwalking into World War III against Russia. A number of developments of the past days reinforce that impression.

In an interview with the German-based syndicated Funke Media Group, Stoltenberg said that the world would not be safer if NATO dropped plans for nuclear weapons, while Russia and China were keeping their arsenals and even increasing them. U.S. nuclear weapons on the territory of the non-nuclear powers in Europe would send out a message against any potential aggressor that the Europeans would be protected, he claimed.

The deployment of at least four B-52 bombers to RAF Fairford in Cotswold, England, at the end of last week, is being played up by the British press as some kind of message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Watch Out, Putin!” blared the Daily Mail, in the headline of its report on the arrival of the bombers. One B-52 was already tracked by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces coming within 150 km of Russian territory while flying over the Baltic Sea on March 15.

The Daily Mail tried to connect the arrival of the B-52s to a NATO exercise in Georgia, dubbed NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019, which began today and will run through March 29. In fact, the exercise is a command-level exercise with only 350 personnel participating, so B-52s will likely not be involved; but, it is intended to help the Georgian military come closer to NATO standards. Georgian membership in NATO is a red line for Moscow.